Tuesday 5 October 2010 08.54 EDT
First published on Tuesday 5 October 2010 08.54 EDT

Martin McGuinness today condemned the Real IRA as "conflict junkies" after a terror attack with a bomb at a bank in the Sinn Féin MP 's native city.

Speaking for the first time at a Conservative party conference McGuinness denounced the republican dissidents who planted the device close to a branch of the Ulster Bank in Derry shortly after midnight.

Last month the Real IRA told the Guardian that banks and bankers were potential targets. The behaviour of the financial institutions on both sides of the Irish had "not gone unnoticed", according to the Real IRA.

The dissident organisation, which has been extremely active in Derry over the last 18 months, is trying to tap into public antipathy towards the banks.

In Birmingham for his first-ever Conservative conference the deputy first minister for Northern Ireland said he was disgusted by the attack, which damaged several business properties including a bank and a hotel and restaurant complex. McGuinness, who lives in Derry , said: "These conflict junkies are attempting to drive a city living very much to the future, back to the past. People in this city are horrified that there are still these neanderthals within our society."

Several people, including guests at the popular Da Vinci's hotel and restaurant as well as residents in a nursing home and people living nearby had been evacuated due to the alert.

Staff at the Ulster Bank, which was among the properties damaged, were threatened some time ago by the Real IRA, the organisation which bombed Omagh in August 1998 when 29 people were killed.

Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, joined McGuinness in condemning the bomb blast. In a statement the two leaders of nationalism and unionism said: "It is clear that the people who carried out this attack have no regard for life or property. Their sole aim is to disrupt our peaceful society and to create a culture of fear.

"We are as determined as ever to build a stable and peaceful society free from sectarianism and we will not allow the achievements of recent years to be destroyed by a small minority who have nothing to offer but a return to the past."

The Northern Ireland secretary, Owen Paterson, joined Robinson and McGuinness in Birmingham in condemning the latest dissident attack in Derry. Paterson said: "They have nothing to say about the future and so cling to a past that everyone else has left behind. The progress that has been made in Northern Ireland over the years has been hard-won. They will not destroy that."

Pat Ramsey, an SDLP councillor in Derry, described those behind the bomb attack as "born-again Provos".

He said: "We stand united today to condemn the born-again Provos responsible for this latest attack in Derry. Their actions have caused great inconvenience and distress to people in Derry. These include vulnerable elderly people who had to be evacuated from their homes late at night, hard-pressed businesses that have had their properties damaged, innocent children who have been unable to get to school and hundreds of commuters who have been curtailed from getting to work."

The Guardian has learned that at least one major high street bank and its parent company in Britain have recently employed a private security firm following the Real IRA's statement. The company has been advising senior bank executives on stepping up their personal security.